Tell Me a Tale
by smallearthcat
Summary: Danny gets a job at a coffee shop, which Stiles begins to frequent. Stiles/Danny slash.


Danny's been letting things get a little out of hand for awhile now. He hadn't meant to, but after getting dumped it had been a lot easier to party it up, go out and get a little bit tipsy (or sometimes a little bit wasted), than to deal with his lacrosse teammates giving him sympathetic looks and empty reassurances. He might have gone a different route, stayed in more and gotten into video games or something, if Jackson had been around more, been more himself. But Jackson wasn't, and Danny didn't, and it's not until he's seriously considering going out to the back alley behind a club with some guy he just met that Danny thinks maybe he needs to switch gears here. After all, he's living in a small town, and no matter how careful he is about these things, his parents are bound to get wind of it sooner or later.

Of course, it's easier said than done. Even if he does manage to keep himself in check a little bit (seriously, no back alleys or sketchy bathrooms anymore), he parties more often than he should. Inevitably, it starts to show, both in class and at lacrosse practice. He starts falling asleep during lectures, and then when it's time to do his homework, he has to make up for what he hadn't learned earlier. Stuff starts not getting done, and so his grades slip more than they ever have before.

On top of that, he's been staying up later than normal, and even if he is the goalie and usually has less rigorous practices than the rest of the team, his playing still suffers. He'd had the vague hope that Coach wouldn't notice, but that's shot down when he's told to clean up his act or risk being pulled from the starting lineup.

Danny would dearly love to be able to say that that was what had finally pushed him to change things up, but the reality of it is that he finally slips up and comes home drunk one night when his dad's still awake. Then it's pretty much out of his hands, whether he keeps up with partying or not, and it's really more of a relief than anything else. He's tired of feeling shitty and wallowing in booze and misery. His ex is not even close to worth it, and Danny is glad he doesn't have to try anymore to convince himself of that.

What is comes down to is this: 1) he's effectively grounded from anything not related to school, lacrosse, or work, for the foreseeable future, and 2) he's getting a job. Thankfully, it's left up to his discretion as to what type of job he's going to get, but getting one is decidedly not optional. Overall, things could be much worse.

It doesn't take Danny long to find a job at all, which both surprises and pleases his dad. And hell, it's not actually that bad on his end, either. He managed to be looking just as a Starbucks was set to open downtown, and they hired him pretty much straight away. The job itself is pretty decent and accommodates his schedule, not to mention that it's kind of nice to be saving some money up on his own.

It's kind of weird the first few times he sees someone he knows, has to take their order and make them coffee, but he gets used to it pretty quickly. And things start to settle down elsewhere, too. His dad keeps pretty close tabs on him, removing even the temptation to sneak out to party. Consequently, he sleeps more, gets his grades back up where they should be, and stops checking out during practice. Everything is falling into place again, and the only thing Danny finds himself missing is someone to spend time with.

Jackson's as distant as ever, barely even good for the occasional ride home from practice anymore, let alone spending any actual time together. And it's not that Danny's exactly _lacking_ for friends, but he's just not that close to anyone else and doesn't necessarily have the time to devote to really getting comfortable with someone right now. So, he just continues to do his thing, because really, what else can he do?

All that gets pretty much blown to hell, however, the first evening that Stiles walks in the door. The guy's always been kind of weird, but he takes it to new levels that day, actually bringing his laptop in, open and clearly capturing all of his attention. He sets it on the counter and seems pleased by now having an extra hand for whatever he's working on. He doesn't even look up as he rattles off a complicated coffee order and shoves a five dollar bill in Danny's direction.

And Danny would like to be offended, that someone's being that rude to him, but if anything, he finds it amusing. It's not often that anyone gets to see Stiles really engrossed in something, especially not to the point of ignoring potential distractions. Danny makes change and makes the coffee, but when he goes to slide it across the counter into Stiles' waiting hand, he holds it just short. The hand sort of gropes around a little, and when there's no coffee easily found, Stiles finally looks up, confusion evident on his face.

"Danny?" he asks, as if Danny's the last person he ever expected to see here.

"Stiles," Danny replies, as dryly as he can manage.

"What are you doing here?" He pauses, like maybe he expects an answer to his question, but hurries on quickly before Danny can actually say anything. "Well, obviously you're here because you're working. And that's great! Who wouldn't want to have easy access to good coffee all the time?"

"You really think you need easier access to coffee?"

Stiles flushes just slightly, but he still grins, so Danny doesn't feel too bad. "Yeah, maybe not. I'm just gonna go...over there."

Stiles grabs his coffee and makes for the nearest table, and within a minute, he's pretty firmly ensconced there, laptop and various books covering the entire table. Danny cleans up after making Stiles' coffee and refills the sugar and creamer, but after that, he's back to not doing much. Evening isn't a very popular time for coffee, and there's really only so many times he can wipe down the counter before it gets to be overkill. Normally, on a night like this, Danny would pull out some homework or a book, but tonight, he feels a bit too restless to sink into it like he normally does.

Instead, he finds himself watching Stiles, who can't seem to sit still, even though all he's doing is reading and typing. It's mesmerizing, almost: shuffle through a book for the right page, type something while reaching for his cup of coffee, take a sip while flipping through the next book. Danny couldn't actually say how long he stands there, just watching Stiles go back and forth so smoothly – and that's something else right there; Danny has rarely seen Stiles being anything but clumsy – but eventually, when Stiles tips back the coffee cup, nothing comes out.

Danny almost laughs – that's twice in one evening he's seen such a look of confusion on Stiles' face – but he manages to keep it to a snicker. Still, Stiles must hear him, because a second later, he's aiming a glare in Danny's direction. Danny just grins and makes up another cup of the same, carrying it out to Stiles' table when he's finished. By the time he gets over there, Stiles is beaming, and Danny really hopes he's not in for a hug or something. Thankfully, all he gets is a pretty decent tip, and it's not long after that that Stiles leaves, thankfully before Danny has to start trying to nudge him out the door in prep for closing.

Danny figures that maybe Stiles will come into the coffee shop once in awhile, just like anyone else, but he's definitely not prepared to for Stiles to show up almost every evening, like clockwork, at 7:30. It's kind of disconcerting at first, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that he's just looking for a quiet place to work. Or, well, Danny supposes he's doing some kind of work, though he's seen the titles of a couple of the books Stiles has brought with him, and he's not sure what Stiles could be getting from a book called _The Secret Lore of Magic_.

One night, though, Danny takes Stiles his customary second cup of coffee, and instead of being handed the also-customary overpayment (seriously, Danny has no idea how Stiles has the money to tip so well all the time), he's pulled down into the chair next to Stiles.

"So, there's this...game. That I like to play."

"Uh," Danny momentarily has nothing to say, because surely Stiles didn't mean that to sound quite so dirty.

"And in it there's this pack of werewolves."

And Danny clearly needs to get laid if Stiles talking about something nerdy is making him think dirty thoughts.

"They're pretty cool, for the most part, only they're all kind of douchebags who try to get me killed all the time."

Stiles reaches for his coffee, and Danny takes the opportunity to get in a question since this is shaping up to be a weird, overly-long story. "What game is this, exactly, and why are you telling me this, anyway?"

"You know what, never mind." Stiles pulls the book he's most recently been flipping through a little closer, his mouth tightening into a small frown.

Danny never thought he'd be urging Stiles, of all people, to talk more, but he actually does kind of want to know, and more than that, he finds that he doesn't like the thought that he made Stiles unhappy. "No, look, I'm sorry. Go on, tell me about this pack of douchebag werewolves."

Stiles looks wary for a second, but the opportunity to talk wins out. "So I've been playing World of Warcraft with these people for like, a couple years now..."

He keeps on talking, and Danny is strangely enthralled by tales of werewolf hunters, a pack of werewolves who all seem to almost hate each other, and battles with some kind of lizard creature. It's like...well, Danny doesn't exactly feel a burning need to go out and buy the game or anything, but he's more into the idea of it than he expected to be. Stiles being Stiles, he just keeps going on, and it's about fifteen minutes past when Danny should have started to close up shop before the current story starts winding down and Danny looks up at the clock.

As much as he wants to hear more, there's no time for it, and he pretty much has to kick Stiles out immediately if he wants to have a chance of getting out on time. And it's not like he expects Stiles to wait for him or anything, but he's kind of disappointed when he locks the door behind himself and finds the parking lot empty but for his car.

Stiles honestly never meant to start frequenting Starbucks, because no matter how good their coffee is, that shit is expensive. He'd gone there once, just to get away from having to deal with Derek pestering him for information he was still searching for, and naturally, he'd run into Danny. Who worked there and had a regular schedule, and maybe Stiles was no better at people than Derek, because he memorized that schedule and couldn't help going in whenever Danny was working (except for Saturdays, because he had to draw the line somewhere, right?).

In any case, Danny never complained, and for some reason, Starbucks seemed to be the one place in town he could actually get some peace and quiet to do his research, so Danny or no Danny, Stiles is pretty sure he'd have kept coming in anyway. That's what he likes to believe, anyway.

He watches Danny sometimes (because the guy is gorgeous, okay), but more often, he works on updating his copy of the bestiary, books spread across the table and tabs upon tabs of sketchy web sources open in his browser. It's slow going, but the information saves everyone's life once and helps them with a couple other more minor issues (like how, exactly, to get rid of the pixie infestation that had Derek stirred up to a nearly murderous rage 24/7), so he figures it's worth it in the end.

The thing is, though, that hanging out with werewolves so often leaves him with very little time for anything normal that spending a couple of hours a night at Starbucks has somehow become his new normal. It's great, really, except for the part where even that revolves around werewolf business, and he wants so badly to just talk to someone who hasn't almost died in the past month that he pulls Danny down into the seat next to him one night and just lets loose.

Stiles couches it all under the guise of World of Warcraft (and thank God Danny never questions that), but he basically tells Danny everything there is to tell about the past two years of his life. He sort of expects the usual reaction once he really gets into it (glazed eyes, the distant expression of someone who's not listening at all), but oddly enough, Danny actually seems interested. So much so that he lets Stiles talk past the usual closing time that first night.

After that, Danny tends to watch the time more closely, but he never really seems any less interested in hearing the latest exploits of Derek & co. He comes over and sits with Stiles practically every evening (unless he's got other customers), bringing a second cup of coffee and staying for a story. It's awesome while it's happening, of course (someone as cool as Danny wants to listen to him talk!), but afterward, he overthinks it kind of a lot.

Because, like, is he being humored here? Is Danny just bored? Maybe he hasn't done a good enough job of keeping everything firmly based in World of Warcraft. The point is that he doesn't know, and when he has the time to think about it, he can't help trying to figure out just what the allure is, here. That doesn't stop him from going back, though, nor from complaining about Isaac sort of taking his place as Scott's new best friend now that they have the whole werewolf thing in common. Or about Derek ignoring his sage advice _again_ and endangering Stiles' life in addition to his own.

Stiles starts to clue in a little bit when Danny starts coming over earlier, telling a few stories of his own about some of the more ridiculous customers he has to deal with. It's kind of nice, having a...well, he guesses they're kind of friends now, so having a friend who's happy with just chatting over coffee. But see, Stiles figures this is pretty much what he's getting from Danny. It honestly never occurs to him to see if Danny might want to do something outside of the times he's working, which is why it's such a surprise when Danny asks if he can come over sometime and watch Stiles play some World of Warcraft to get a feel for the game.

Stiles says yes without even thinking about it, and he doesn't realize until he's actually almost home that not only have none of the things he's described to Danny happened in the game, but he doesn't even own it in the first place. Sometimes his life really sucks.

Danny hadn't really thought Stiles would agree so readily to having him over for some gaming, and it throws him off just a little bit. He'd been pretty sure that none of the stories Stiles had told him had anything to do with World of Warcraft, especially after having done a little research himself. There were all kinds of gaming guides, and there was really just no way someone would use actual occult books as research in their stead. But the ready acceptance...that makes him pause, rethink a little bit.

Has he really been spending all his free time for the last month researching werewolves because he somehow thought Stiles' crazy stories might be real? It seems sort of implausible the more he thinks about it. Then again, what will it hurt to find out, right? Either Stiles will put on the game and it'll be kinda cool to know more, or he'll try to bluff his way out of it, and in either case, Danny will have his answer.

So, he shows up at Stiles' house on a Saturday afternoon, and Stiles is just as jittery as ever. That means nothing, of course, other than that he's had too much coffee, which doesn't surprise Danny in the slightest. He lets Stiles lead the way up to his room, and it's looking like maybe he really is in for an afternoon of World of Warcraft when Stiles just stops dead in his tracks.

"Look, there's something I have to tell you."

"I knew it!" Danny grins in triumph, not even really needing to hear Stiles admit that there is no game.

"What?" Stiles looks like he's halfway between confusion and his head exploding.

"There was never any game, was there? Werewolves are real."

Stiles splutters a bit, at an uncharacteristic loss for words, before finally nodding. "How did you know?"

"What, like you're the only one who can research? None of the things you told me make sense in the context of World of Warcraft."

Stiles just sort of stares, like maybe he can't quite believe _Danny_ is real, and Danny can't really help himself when he leans forward and plants a kiss on Stiles' slightly parted lips. Stiles pulls away after only a moment, and Danny busts up laughing; clearly he's pretty much breaking Stiles' brain today.

"Since when is this a thing we do?" Stiles asks, almost disbelievingly.

"Oh, come on. I figured out that werewolves were real and you couldn't even figure out this was coming?"

Stiles' eyes narrow at that. "Are you saying you're smarter than me?"

"Nah, just a little bit quicker on the uptake."

"I'll show you who's quicker on the uptake."

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then again, Stiles practically flings himself at Danny and pulls him into another kiss, so Danny figures they both win this round.


End file.
